About an hour later, I’m back at my little Cape Cod, dressed and decidedly feeling myself, when the doorbell rings and my heart skips a beat.
He’s here.
I go downstairs and pull open the door to find Nash standing on my stoop, a little stack of paperbacks in one hand and a big grin on his face.
“Damn, you look gorgeous,” he says, drinking me in until I blush.
“You clean up well yourself,” I answer, emboldened to let my eyes drag over him. He’s wearing a suit that hints at muscular arms and toned pecs, and he’s got a scruffy but well-kept beard that instantly has me hot under the collar. I look to the stack of books and ask, “What’s that?”
“A bookquet,” he says, giving me that crooked smile as he holds it out to me. “I figured flowers are nice, but a librarian would appreciate this a little more. Three of my personal favorites.”
I take the stack, the three books neatly tied together with twine, and read the titles. “The Complete Sonnets of Shakespeare, The Great Gatsby, and…” I smile and look at him. “Watership Down?”
“That last one might have been Chelsea-influenced,” he says. “She’s been reading the bunny books she got from the library all day.”
“Well, thank you,” I say, “I love this—no one’s ever gotten me a bookquet before.”
“I’m honored to be the first,” he says as I lean back inside and set the books down on the table by the door.
“Should we go to dinner?”
“Just one more thing first,” he says, then suddenly I’ve been swept up in his arms, feeling the strength of them as he brings his mouth down to my own.
The kiss is fire. His scent swirls in my head and suddenly I never want to leave his embrace—as impractical as that is, but I’ll find a way if he’s game.
Then, he’s letting me go, looking sheepishly at me and saying, “Sorry, I just couldn’t go one more minute without doing that.” Before I have a chance to answer, he gives me his elbow and says, “Shall we go now?”
“Yes,” I say, but what I’m thinking is, or we could say to hell with dinner and just go upstairs instead…
4
Nash
I take Nora downtown, to a place my sister told me about. It opened up while I was overseas, and I’ve been dying to try it out—and I’ve got a feeling it’s right up Nora’s alley.
“A bookstore?” she asks as we park the car and walk up the sidewalk toward our destination. She smiles at me, her sapphire eyes swirling with amusement. “Continuing the book theme, huh?”
“Sort of,” I say, pulling the door open for her. “This is a functional bookstore, but it’s got a secret too.”
She raises an eyebrow at me and I’m mesmerized. Goddamn, I’ve never met anyone like her—stunning from head to toe, great with the kids at the library, and she tastes delicious too.
The kiss at her front door was totally spontaneous, and a bit of a gamble. She already told me I was being forward when I asked her out. What if she’d pushed me away, slapped me, told me to take a hike?
It would have been well-deserved, but at the same time I was willing to take that risk because from the moment I first laid eyes on this woman, I knew I had to have her by my side. Even if it is only for the next few days before I ship out again.
But I got lucky. She sank into the kiss, moaning against my lips, and she’s here with me now.
And her eyes light up when I lead her through the bookstore to an inconspicuous door marked Supply Room. I put my hand on the knob and Nora says, “Are we about to trespass?”
I just smile at her, then push the door open.
Inside, there’s a short hallway, and at the end, a second door. As we get closer, jazz music begins to bleed through the cracks, and Nora’s got this magical look on her face like I’m taking her to Narnia on our first date.
“Is this a speakeasy?” she asks as I open the second door for her to reveal a moodily lit bar, complete with bartenders in period dress.
“Yup,” I tell her. “It’s actually called The Supply Room. My sister, Chelsea’s mom, told me I had to check it out while I’m in town. What do you think?”
“It’s amazing,” Nora says, actually spinning around to take it all in. “I’ve lived in Golden Creek all my life and I never knew this was here.”
“It’s new,” I say, taking her hand and leading her over to an open table.
A server in a pinstripe vest and a fedora comes to take our orders. We decide on a whiskey flight to share, and a sampler of the speakeasy’s best canapes. While we wait, Nora leans across the table and says, “Okay, you brought me Watership Down because of Chelsea. What’s the story behind the Shakespeare and the Fitzgerald?”
I smile. I knew books would be better for a librarian than flowers. “My mother loved the sonnets. She used to make my sister and I memorize them when we were on summer break, so our brains wouldn’t atrophy, she said.”
“And The Great Gatsby?”
“‘You see, I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there, trying to forget the sad things that happened to me,’” I quote, my chin resting in my hand as I look into Nora’s beautiful eyes. “Everything you need to know about the world you can learn from Fitzgerald.”
She smiles, the color that started in her cheeks subtly radiating out, and I struggle not to follow it into the inviting depths of her cleavage. “You’re very well-read.”
“Sometimes I find myself with a lot of time on my hands,” I say, and before our food has even arrived, I stand up and extend my
